


riches won are twice as sweet

by ambyr



Category: Kushiel's Legacy - Jacqueline Carey
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 2, F/M, Gambling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-11-17 21:14:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18106589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambyr/pseuds/ambyr
Summary: How Caroline nó Bryony came to meet Benoit Vallon, not yet of Atelier Favrielle.





	riches won are twice as sweet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RobberBaroness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobberBaroness/gifts).



I came to Bryony House when I was ten years of age, as is right and proper, and I had absorbed the precepts of the house as much as any adept might in the decade that followed. But it was to Eglantine that I was born, and it was to Eglantine that I owed the conjurer's grace with which I snapped the cards together and apart, letting them unfurl like a fan before bridging the deck back together.

"Your wager, my lord?" I asked the first player, my hand poised to deal.

He gave it, and his companion matched it.

"I've not enough of value here to wager that much coin," the third man at my table demurred, and laid down his cards. 

The lady to his left more than made up the lack, doubling the bid. I listened with half an ear while she and the first two gentleman drove the price higher, building a mental picture of what hand each patron held based on their sums, tones, and gestures. It mattered little; that night I only dealt, and the House would take a cut regardless of who won the hand. But it was wise to stay in practice. One never knew when a patron might want to wager on a private game--or what stakes they would suggest.

I would not say patrons were unpredictable, because prediction is the art of my House. But that does not mean that all could be read at a glance. What is art if it does not, occasionally, face a challenge?

I turned to the third man, my challenge for the evening.

"My lord," I murmured. "That is the fifth hand you have laid aside. Do you intend to make no gambles this evening? For if so, in this House, it comes perilously close to heresy."

I smiled, and he returned the favor, though his own was a crooked thing, with a gap between two teeth where they had not quite grown together. Perhaps they would, yet; he was a tall man, gangly with youth, half-finished.

"I intend to gamble when the stakes are worth it," he confided.

The bidding had stopped, and so, with a flourish, I laid out the next round of cards.

"You say the stakes are too low?" I inquired, while the rest of the table revealed their cards and the lady raked in her winnings to cries of mock pain. "But then, you say you are short on coin as well."

"It is not coin I hope to win."

"No?" I let the cards dance between my hands, forming the illusion of an endlessly falling cascade. The other members of the table oohed and aahed, but the tall man merely watched, silent until the cards were dealt. He studied his hand, discarded it, and steepled his fingers over it. They were not calloused, I noted, but the nails were clipped sharper than was favored by the court. A merchant, then?

"I wish," he said, while the others grew raucous with bids once more, "to make a private wager."

"For my favors?" I asked, with a coquettish quirk of my lips.

"Ah, no. That, I think, is beyond my coin."

"What, then?" I asked, intrigued enough that I paid little heed to the other patrons beyond noting when the bidding had stopped and new cards were called for.

He leaned forward. "I want to dress you for the Midwinter Masque."

The second man at my table made a noise of complaint at my slow dealing, and I turned away to sooth him--and to encourage him that it might be time to gather up his winnings and seek an adept before the night shaded to morning. He and his companion left, laughing, and the lady, seeing the pickings shrink, moved on to another table.

"Me, my lord?" I asked, when the others had gone. "There are others here more fair."

He shrugged. "But none, I think, with quite your talent for showmanship. I do not seek a wax doll for a model. I seek someone who can show my work to best advantage--someone who knows fashion's true beauty shows only with the right motions, pose, and light."

I nodded, slowly. "And with what atelier do you work?"

He flushed. "None, as yet. But if I can bring my designs to the right eyes, at the right time--you are of Bryony. You understand."

"I understand business, yes," I murmured. "So. You would wager for me to wear your design--untried, untested--on the most important night of the year. What do you propose as a forfeit, if you lose?"

He straightened his spine and answered, levelly, "That I dress you for the Midwinter Masque. At no charge."

I laughed in truth, then.

"Oh, _very_ good. You have great confidence in your work, my lord."

"In my work," he agreed, "and in you. Shall we play?"

I shuffled again, three times, each one crisp and sure. "Very well. But I think I shall need a better forfeit than that. A year of profits from your work, shall we say?"

He paled at that, but nodded. I began to deal, but before I could turn the first card, he had reached across the table. 

"Allow me," he said, and dealt two hands, briskly, off the deck I had so carefully arranged. One showed a mix of numbers; the other, four kings.

"I think," he said, almost apologetically, "you will need something with flowing sleeves, yes? Something to distract from your hands."

I laughed again, and swept up the cards. "I defer to your expertise, my lord--?"

"Vallon," he said. "Benoit Vallon. And I assure you, profits or no, you will not regret this business arrangement."

"We shall see," I said, and tidied up the cards. "Shall we begin? There are private rooms where you might . . . take measurements."

If I was not to have his profits, I could at least be rewarded by his blush.


End file.
